Hoshi's Grudge Against the Nick channels
''NOTE: This has plot holes, and things might sound incredibly confusing. If there are any typos or categories that should be added, please add them, though chances are nobody will ever read this anyway. Also, everything you are about to read is true. I did not make this up one day. Now without further ado, let's begin!'' When I was younger, Nick Jr. was my favourite television channel. Most of the shows had so much charm and are way better than the crap they air nowadays. Back in 2002, 2003 and 2004, when I lived in my old house (which was a skyscraper), it was virtually the only channel I watched. I can still even remember part of the schedule; Little Bear aired at 6:30 p.m., Maggie and the Ferocious Beast aired at 7:00 p.m. and Max and Ruby aired at 7:30p.m. before the channel closed at 8:00p.m. every night. Before the channel closed (and once it hit 7:00p.m.), the guy from Blue's Clues used to sing this weird bedtime song called The Bedtime Business Song (which sounds pretty gross, the more I think about it). After the final song, the screen used to cut to a border indicating that the channel is now closing for the day, and says that it will return at 6:00 a.m. After some melody played in the background, it would cut to another border, with no music, and with some text at the bottom (I cannot remember what it said, as I cannot find a link to it). Even then, I would not change the channel. I would just sit there, looking at the screen, until somebody changed the channel. Now let's move over to September 2005, where everything starts to suck. 2005, as a whole, is probably my worst childhood year; I got bullied way too much in school, I started getting conditions attached to my video game time at home, and I overall just hated it (2004 was like this too, but I had no video game conditions and everything was less stressful). The later years were like this, but everything was less annoying then. Now, let's stop heading off-topc. So we moved house on 22nd November, 2004. One day, after returning from school to have much lunch at home on, what I think was, 1st September, 2005. Nick Jr. went through quite an overhaul. One thing to note is that they introduced an incredibly cheesey lunchtime song. They also introduced a new nighttime block, called Nick Jr. Classics (they actually introduced a nighttime block called Noggin in May 2004, but that did not play relevance in my life at all). Nick Jr. had increased its time by two hours, now closing at 10:00p.m. The 8:00p.m. to 10:00p.m. time slot was used for Nick Jr. Classics. The purpose of the block was to air shows from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Honestly, I really admire them for doing this, as nowadays, shows like Bod, The Wombles, Mr. Benn, Button Moon and Bagpuss are now no longer aired at all on TV, and the block was allegedly popular to adults as well, plus only the UK variant of Nick Jr. aired this block, so that was pretty cool. But oh god, this is where things get messy and confusing. My memory also gets a bit blunt here, so bare with me. So I was watching Nick Jr. with a tin of meatballs, and after the lunchtime song played, the channel cut to this ident featuring the 'Nick' splat design. Suddenly, however, a piece of fruit (which I think was a banana) appears from the east side of the screen, and travels forward to the west, but as it makes contact with the splat logo, it smudges the letters. Eventually, other fruit come over, and from my recollection, they hit a second word besides the splat logo with, from my recollection, blue paint. There is also a second part to the ident (which is actually the first part) which was occasionally shown. It featured two orange Pac Man like creatures eating fruit, a small and a big one. The small one runs off the screen. The big one, meanwhile, keeps eating fruit, until it is hit by a big piece of fruit, a squashing noise is heard, and the big one is crushed, and transformed into the Nick splat. The second word next to the Nick splat was the name of the ident, though I never caught the name, so I have already refered to it as the Nick Fruit. This used to scare the hell out of me. I mean, I know it sounds weird getting creeped out by a smudged Nickelodeon splat, but it didn't help that it was occupied by this awful rock music, and the sound effects didn't help either. And murdering a orange Pac Man and turning him into a logo is just creepy. Seriously, little kids were watching this, and whilst this ident is very obscure today, kids would still be seeing this back in the day. I couldn't have been the only one creeped out by this. To make matters worse, I did not eat a single meatball that day. And not only that, but my teacher was asking all the kids that day what type of fruit they had for lunch. I was in Primary 2 at the time, just so you know. Really, the ident hardly bugged me at first, but I watched Nick Jr. again that evening, and they were airing the ident almost every single ad break. Amd remember, all of this is real, and I was 5 at the time. I'm surprised I remember most of this. I tried to tell my parents about this, but it was very hard to explain the ident to them. I originally told them that a piece of fruit "squashed" the splat logo, which is inaccurate. As it turns out, I was diagonsed with aspergers less than a year later anyway, so maybe that is the reason this creeps me out and why I couldn't explain it properly. And no, I don't remember getting diagonsed, but I have been told it was when I was 6, in 2006. Also, speaking of 2006, a TV channel called Nick Jr. 2 was launched that year. So yeah, they launched a clone of the original channel that aired the exact same shows. Was that really necessary? It was also the same day Cartoon Network Too launched, so both channels sat next to each other on the Sky EPG. So yeah, both Nick Jr. and Cartoon Network got sequel channels on the same day, both exclussive to the UK. Cartoon Network Too's launch was announced, Nick Jr. 2's appeared out of nowhere. To top it all of, Cartoon Network Too was discontinued in April 2014. Nick Jr. 2 later rebranded as Nick Jr. Too in October that year. Hmmm... this totally doesn't look suspicious. Now let's cut to 2007. My favourite TV channel is now Cartoonito, and it sits right above Nick Jr. 2. One Friday that year (I think this was in the summer), after watching stuff like Cailou, Blanche and Fluffy Gardens (yes, Cartoonito used to air stuff like that), I decided to switch over to Nick Jr. for some reason, and I decided to watch some Max and Ruby (it appears they decided to not move it off the 7:30 p.m. slot), and I casually just sat and watched Nick Jr. Classics with my dad, who was also interested to see some of the stuff he used to watch. Eventually, I was the only one in the room, and just as it hit 10:00p.m., and Nick Jr. was just about to close for the night, the Nick Fruit returned to haunt me! Just before the orange Pac Man was crushed, I hit the up button on the EPG amd switched the channel to Pop (Pop was below Nick Jr. on the EPG, but for some reason, the buttons on the box had reversed commands). So yep, the Nick Fruit decided to show up at the last second, just when I thought it was gone forever. I did leave the rooms a few times during that 2.5 hour period, so I suppose it could have appeared when I was not in the room. Now let's head over to 2008. Dad told me that he would watch Nick Jr. all day to prove that the Nick Fruit was no more. After returning home that day, he claimed that he never saw it at all. I was unsure to believe him or not, as he could have lied to me, or just switched it off and walking me to school and switched it back on before picking me up, but I believe he was telling the truth all along. More proof came when my sister told me to watch Rugrats with her on Nickelodeon, again in 2008. After watching it for about 2 hours, I never saw it. Now it is time to head over to 2009. I am now a LittleBigPlanet fanboy, and I remember playing a level that claimed that Nickelodeon would be changing their logo in September that year. Whilst this was true, it was only true for the American variant. The UK channel kept the old logo until February 2010. Hell, even Nick Jr. kept its old logo until April that year. It even became a 24 hour channel in August that year. I once had a dicussion with my parents about the whole story one supper time in late 2010. My dad then claimed that he saw the ident once, and that I ran out of the room and got him to see it, though I do not remember this. Although we decided that it was true the Nick Fruit was no more, I still decided I was too old for the channel. Especially since I was in Primary 7 at the time. Also, Nick Jr. Classics is no more. It was taken off the air the same day Nick Jr. updated to its new logo, which, to be honest, is actually quite a shame. I guess today's little kids are going to have to live with their crappy shows instead. Random poll that will never get any votes What do you think of this? It was interesting. It was funny. It was boring. Too many plot holes. You a coward. Needs more detail.